An off beat look at Indonesian and South East Asian football from the terraces or the pub

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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Thai Striker Banned From National Team

Thailand are currently hosting the King's Cup, I'm not covering it, featuring teams from Scandinavia and South Korea and not doing particularly well it must be said. Anyway striker Sompong Soleb decided to go out for a few beers, breaking curfew, drove home, smashed up his motor and in fine Thai tradition, fled the scene.

He was later caught and sentenced to one month in the slammer, suspended for two years, fined some loose change and faced the wrath of German national team coach Winnie Schaefer who has banned him from the national team.

Is that in his remit though? Sompong plays for Buriram who were Division One champions in 2011 and will merge with Buriram PEA though it remains to be seen whether or not Sompong will be asked to stay on at the club.

Everyone knows though that Thai football is run by a certain influential individiual whose two teams have won three trophies so far and are on target to complete a whitewash when Buriram PEA play Thai Port in the League Cup Final.

These gentleman doesn't take disappointments lightly. Will he 'allow' Sompong to be banned for so long or will he consider that as a Buriram player, 'overseen' by his missus, he shouldn't get involved.

This case could be an interested test case in to how Thai football is run and for whose benefit.